Demo against BNP conference in Blackpool

[Das Uberdog]

The type of lads the BNP target for themselves.

 

[mk12]

Can you tell that from how people look?

 

[Groucho]

It's fucked up numpty's like you that stopped the left uniting in Germany. You're as bad for the fucking movement as the fascists, because you act as their rear-guard.

Er...Das...?

 

[JohnC]

Another positive report (and I'm not in the SWP, not that that makes any difference at all). Nice bit of film, by the way.

Over 200 anti-fascists gathered in Blackpool today to protest at the British National Party holding their conference at the resort. Protesters came from Blackpool, Lancaster, Barrow, Preston, Manchester and Liverpool, and included students and trades unionists.

Speakers included Weyman Bennett: Joint Secretary UAF, Ruquayyah Collector: Black Students' Officer NUS, Alec McFadden: North West TUC, Pete Marsden: Blackpool Unison, Mark Barker: Vice-Chair Regional PCS, Paul Jenkins: Barrow and South Cumbria UAF and Mike Killian: Manchester UAF.

Following the gathering at the entrance of the Winter Gardens, marred only by three sieg-heiling idiots in masks, the crowd marched through the town centre, distributing leaflets en route, to the New Kimberley, the hotel hosting the conference, the location of which we had already confirmed thanks to a bit of co-operation between the press and UAF.

We spoke to the BBC who had just left the Kimberley after interviewing Nick Griffin inside the venue, who informed us that total attendance of the conference appeared to be around 50-60 people including security - a far cry from the 5-600 the BNP claimed would be there. The promised counter-demonstration never materialised, unless you count the three morons already mentioned or the small group photographing us (no doubt for Redwatch) in the town centre who literally ran away as soon as the police showed an interest in them.

A restaurant-owner who had come to see what all the fuss was about as we marched to the New Kimberley was horrified to hear that the BNP was meeting in Blackpool. He offered free teas and the use of his facilities to all the protestors - an offer which we gratefully accepted after a few hours in the wind and rain.

We held our rally directly in front of the BNP's hotel, with more speeches and an awful lot of shouting as the BNP security watched us nervously from the foyer and trainee BNP-councillors made rude gestures from the windows or peeped around curtains at us.

Despite numerous appeals from leaders of Blackpool City Council for hotels to deny the BNP a venue in the town, and warnings that unions would boycott any venue that provided the BNP with space for any reason, the management of the New Kimberley decided to go for short-term gain and accomodate the fascists. They'll soon find this backfiring on them as UAF and trades unionists are beginning an immediate campaign to place a permanent boycott on the hotel - and any other hotel - that provided space for the BNP.

If you wish to make a complaint direct to the New Kimberley Hotel, you can do so by ringing 01253 341184, faxing them at 01253 408737 or writing to them at 585-589 New South Promenade, Blackpool FY4 1NQ. Curiously, for all its much-vaunted two-stars, it can't rustle up an email address.

We'd be interested in finding out who owns this fascist-friendly B&B so if you know, please share your information with us by emailing [email protected]

 

[Das Uberdog]

Can you tell that from how people look?

Are you saying that the BNP don' target certain cultural stereotypes? Was Marx just being a bourgeois wanker when he coined the term 'lumpenproletariat'? What about the expressionists in the Weimar Republic and their depictions of the ex-soldiers taking up patriotism and nationalism with zeal?

Case in point, I've been punched enough times by people who look a certain way to have certain cultural stereotypes based mainly upon class. Not that I don't understand varying reasons for deviant social behaviour, or what society may deem as 'deviant' social behaviour, but if you deny that there is a 'chav' subculture in this country you're not only denying reality you're also going against the general social analysis of Britain's left as well.

 

[fanciful]

another report here

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=entry&entry=962

 

[stevepinker]

Case in point, I've been punched enough times by people who look a certain way

Hey snap that's what the BNP say about blacks, Lucky your talking about the white working class

 

[Das Uberdog]

Er...Das...?

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there's nothing worse about actually coming out with blatant insults than wrapping blatant insults up in a mask of pseudo intellectual trollops and pretending it's analytical commentary.

 

[Das Uberdog]

Hey snap that's what the BNP say about blacks, Lucky your talking about the white working class

Who the fuck says I am? I made no mention of race, only chavvish underculture.

 

[stevepinker]

The type of lads the BNP target for themselves.

Sorry i must of missed seeing the huge rise in black BNP members

 

[treelover]

Oh yes, Julie Waterson's infamous comment, 'estate scum' comes to mind, the far left (unlike anarchists, and no i'm not one) have always had a downer on the er, non working classes, the mob, the underclass, unlike the much vaunted respectable working class, the 'industrial proletariat' which they have fetishised.

Can you tell that from how people look?

 

[Das Uberdog]

Oh my fucking god, I think I would seriously beat the shit out of you if I ever met you in real life you pompous twat. Are you fucking denying there is a chav subculture or not you miserable shit?

And; is that subculture associated mainly with progressive left-wing politics or with yobbish thuggery? Therefore, is it not something positive and worth of note when they betray their stereotypes?

I'd like to see how you deal with ordinary working folk treelover, because it doesn't seem you have much experience with them or society as a whole at all - same goes for pink stevey.

 

[stevepinker]

Ha Ha Ha
Its a mad little man

 

[Das Uberdog]

Yeah, I know I'm all for open insults instead of cowardly, chirlish sarcastic remarks and non-remarks, but you actually have to link it in with some form of argument in order for that to work dipshit.

 

[stevepinker]

Yeah, I know I'm all for open insults instead of cowardly, chirlish sarcastic remarks and non-remarks, but you actually have to link it in with some form of argument in order for that to work dipshit.

Don't worry little man your safe from the working class behind your keyboard, You can make all the threats you want

Your Stereotypes will keep you safe..Remmeber you can tell who's bad because of the way they look


Do you extend that to black people

 

[Spion]

Does anything the SWP are involved in go 'bad' or 'wrong' instead of 'brilliant , or fantastic', tbh, this is like soviet propaganda, the demo was tiny from what i've read.

And you seem to be its antithesis.

 

[Das Uberdog]

Don't worry little man your safe from the working class behind your keyboard, You can make all the threats you want

Your Stereotypes will keep you safe..Remmeber you can tell who's bad because of the way they look


Do you extend that to black people

Note for all: observe the fallacious analysis and how it in no way coincides with any relevant arguments thus far, a trait common amongst morons, the right wing and generally those with no position to defend, and only intent to spew vitriol.

 

[Groucho]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there's nothing worse about actually coming out with blatant insults than wrapping blatant insults up in a mask of pseudo intellectual trollops and pretending it's analytical commentary.

Fascists are worse.

 

[Das Uberdog]

Nah, fascists are just the end-product of lots of things - fascists are the forces which actually destroy the movement, which may make them worse as people, but not worse for the movement. We all have a job to play in it, and sectarian inner-left fighting is one of the greatest threats to combatting the rise of conservative ideas.

 

[Groucho]

And you seem to be its antithesis.

There is a reason the SWP keeps self criticism out of print and out of the public arena. If the SWP said 'we got it 90% right but...' the but would be plastered all over the sectarian press and all over certain message boards for years to come. Every time internal debate gets leaked there are 10s of irrelevent little sects predicting a major split (and turning their attention to turn their elusional fantasies into reality). So we keep internal debate internal.

I'd have thought 200 regionally mobilised by UAF against a 'conference' of 50 or so miserable fascists sufficed quite nicely.

All those miserable 'leftists' who mobilise nothing but sit at their keyboards whinging about how badly they reckon those who do organise do it are irrelevent.

 

[Groucho]

Nah, fascists are just the end-product of lots of things - fascists are the forces which actually destroy the movement, which may make them worse as people, but not worse for the movement. We all have a job to play in it, and sectarian inner-left fighting is one of the greatest threats to combatting the rise of conservative ideas.

Hm given that you were saying that it was bollocks like that that stopped the left uniting in Germany, it seems a bit odd to then say that sectarians are as bad as Fascists. One problem that stopped the movement uniting in Germany was ultra-left ideas that this or that other section of the left were worse for the movement than the fascists.

Sectarian intra-left fighting is largely an irrelevence. It isn't a threat to anything unless we idulge in it ourselves. That's why the SWP usually ignores the little sects - the're problem is irrelevency. There problem is not ours.

We are right not to ignore the real threat from the BNP, marginal though it is at present.

 

[stevepinker]

Note for all: observe the fallacious analysis and how it in no way coincides with any relevant arguments thus far, a trait common amongst morons, the right wing and generally those with no position to defend, and only intent to spew vitriol.

Reread what you have posted and the manner its been posted in, Whose spewing vitriol ?

So can you tell bad black people from their dress ?

 

[durruti02]

its right wing crap dressed up as pseudo socialism

mass immigration has happened at times in every country throughout the world, its a fact of life and one that youd have hoped people would have got used to by now

yeah so a few hundred thousand polish folk have come in the last couple of years, most of them will probably go home after a while, it may fluctuate prices on the labour market for a bit but that wont last

with regard to housing etc its complete bollocks, as has been pointed out by me and countless others on these boards fuck knows how many times, immigrants are not entitled to social housing, this would be why the biggest increase in street homeless folk in london has been polish men

british people have been emigrating for years in far higher numbers than those coming here, there are two million ex-pats in spain, who funnily enough dont face the same level of abuse and discrimination that immigrants receive here

in addition british builders have been trawling europe for years to get work, auf wiedersein pet anyone

yeah because of eu expansion theres been a bit of a boom in the last year but it will die down, the good news for all anti-immigrant types is that asylum seekers were down to 11,000 last year

this recycling of the anti-immigrant, theyre coming here stealing our jobs/houses line coming from some sections of the left is becoming increasingly unpleasant and not that far removed from traditional facist arguments against immigration

as ive said before, sadly theres always been working class racism, it is to be challenged not justified

so it is wrong for the w/c /unions to want to try to control wages/jobs????? i thought that was a pretty basic tenet of our class/movement!!!

.. or maybe we should all leave our loved ones and seek work far away ..

immigration is NOT good just cos it has always happenned .. it creates misery and heartache .. it splits families AND destroys our capacity to fight for a better world

immigration and labour mobility is the capitalists dream

p.s. racism is created to divide the immigrant from the established worker .. the is NO contradiction being against capitalist inspired immigration AND racism

 

[durruti02]

just to add, i wonder how much experience people actually have of the anti-immigrant, anti-muslim, bnp voting working class that some on the left seem to be fetishising at the moment

they aint nice poeple you know, they read the sun and the mail, they dont just hate immigrants, muslims (or pakis as they are more likely to call them) but they also hate poofs, students, pikeys, the people who live in the town next door, hippies, communists, punks .. in fact anyone who they preceive as being different and therefore a threat

they're the type of people who'll break your nose for looking at their pint, as someone who grew up amongst many people like that it wasn't much fun and it makes me sick to see people on the (particularly anarcho) left defending them

ive still got the scars that prove what some of the working class right are like

fair points but why are people like that?? or are ALL w/c people just scum then mate

people are like that cos they are .. ( and i know i clearly do not need to be telling you ) threatenned powerless impotent weak inside .. the definition of a bully

i do not blame you for moving on .. but where is the solution if you blame the people not the system?

p.s. though in terms of NOW i think you are way off line .. there are as many GOOD left thinking people who are concerned at the way the bosses are USING and ABUSING immigrants to drive down wages.. it is not just the twisted and fcked up who see any issue with immigration

p.s. the BNP are NOT anti immigrant .. they are anti white commonwealth immigration .. and p.s.s. there is confusion amongst the fasc re white euro immigration some for some against!

 

[durruti02]

well they must be unlucky because the unemployment figures do not bear this out, whilst unemployment is climbing very slowly, compared to the number of people out of work in the 70s/80/early 90s unemployment is still very low

not true .. it is disguised by disability allownace and the massive increase in post 16 to 19 education

also the jobs are far worse .. in hackney today outside of the public sector ( and much of that has been outsourced to minimum wage ( or worse) cowboys) there are NO what would have been called proper jobs .. Metal Box, Lesneys, the timber yards, maynards etc etc .. in tottenham worse .. Gestetner teh furniture factories .. al the old manufacturing jobs ( however shit they paid well ) have gone . there has been an increasein white collar jobs in the city .. this is of course repeated over the whole country .. we have swopped jobs for life for McJobs

p.s. i think you underestimate the effect that all this has had .. yes it was exporting jobs .. i'm against that too .. but immigration is being USED as part if this a

 

[durruti02]

what do you want, militarised borders, more detention centres, more people forced into being 'illegal' and forced into unsafe working conditions

but this is where you get it TOTALLY wrong

what people are asking for is that the bosses can not get away with dismissing workers here and replacing them with lower paid workers from abroad .. they operate agencies in many countries now ..

immigrants come here as they KNOW they will get work (and the vast majority do) Why?? cos the neo liberlas/the Thatcherites are in charge .. if we had some sort of control over wages/jobs 95% of immigrants would NOT come here as they know there would not be jobs for them.

 

[durruti02]

In the meantime, going to a demo (hint), dishing out leaflets to folk and talking to people seems like a moderately productive thing to do.

while i appreciate that point the trouble is it detracts from the reality that the left has almost entirely lost its role/influence in w/c communities and its inability to deal with the causes of facsism .. so i'm genuinely sorry i do not think it is even moderately productive .

 

[durruti02]

Hey snap that's what the BNP say about blacks, Lucky your talking about the white working class

my DAS has dug himself a hole!! what a tosser .. no wonder the left are fked!!

 

[smokedout]

what people are asking for is that the bosses can not get away with dismissing workers here and replacing them with lower paid workers from abroad .. they operate agencies in many countries now ..

immigrants come here as they KNOW they will get work (and the vast majority do) Why?? cos the neo liberlas/the Thatcherites are in charge .. if we had some sort of control over wages/jobs 95% of immigrants would NOT come here as they know there would not be jobs for them.

sorry mate but you're not living in the ral world, immigrants come here for lots of reaons ... to travel (backpackers), to join family and to study

some come to work, usually leaving behind family and friends, the reason being that they are living in poverty in their own country and they want to feed their children

the minimum wage, obscenely low as it is does have the effect of protecting those at the very bottem of the wage strata, which represents a large group of the working class, the vast majority of the middle income working class work in public sector roles, nurses, dinnerladies, binmen

also protected by local authority policy and hard won union recognition

the most recent influx of immigrants has been european white collar workers or polish/east european tradesmen

this has undoubtably had an impact on british tradesen, my mate is selling up his half million house in brixton to move to wales because he cant get enough work, plumbers are no longer able to charge a ton an hour, black cab drivers are feeling the pinch in their surrey households

the issues you raise about casualisation are valid, but are nothing to do with immigration

and you say that if there were no jobs for them then immigrants wouldnt come here

regardless of the fact that many employers are terrified of employing immigrants because of the risk of prosecution should they turn out to be illegal ...

then how would you stop them being employed, ban british companies from employing foreigners (oh, they already did), pull out of the eu, would you give up your freedom of movement ... why should we be able to go and work in poland if its not reciprocated

where do you draw the lines, at the artificial borders that designate states or further afield ... im an economic immigrant to london from the north

should i have been stopped half way down the m1 because im in danger of taking some of the gravy train of the south east

these supposedly leftist arguments against immigration are no different to the crap weve been hearing from the right for years, from enoch powell, through to the bnp ... i wonder if many promoting them are old (or poor) enough to remember how these arguments translated onto the streets

i grew up wondering why every asian shop in white areas of bradford was boarded up and covered in swastikas

the anti-immigration line ALWAYS translates to an anti-immigrant line as it filters down to the streets

immigration is a fact of the human experience, how do you think you got here? get used to it, deal with it and lets work out how the working class from all countries can fight for liberation both nationally and internationally

 

[smokedout]

btw john c, sorry i forgot to plug this, thought it was in december for some reason

good action tho' not bad for a bunch of trots